The need for generation and application of heat is necessary, or at least desirable, in many diverse manners and degrees, including the application of heat to defined areas such as a room or rooms used for living quarters and/or a water heated used to provide hot water for living quarters. Various systems have been developed to generate and provide heat to both room air and water within a water heater, and some such systems have been heretofore provided with a control system for maintaining the room air or water at preselected temperatures.
More recently, solar collectors and associated systems have been developed and/or utilized to take advantage of solar energy and collect therefrom heat which has then been utilized, directly or indirectly, for heating air and/or water. As is well known, the direct availability of heat from solar energy is essentially limited to those periods when sun rays can be, and are, directed to a solar collector the heat availability from which varies in intensity from a minimum (essentially zero) in early morning before the sun rays are directed to the collector, to a maximum during midday, and then again to a minimum after the sun rays no longer reach the collector in late afternoon.
In an effort to better utilize the heat derived from solar energy, control units have been heretofore developed of direct application of such heat to both air and water. Such control units have not, however, been completely successful, at least in some instances, in efficiently directing the applications of such heat to air and/or water, have not provided a control system capable of satisfactorily sensing differing heat needs, and/or have not provided a control system capable of satisfactorily interpreting and satisfying the application of needed or desired heat in the most efficient manner.